“Immediately,” Belknap continued, pacing the room restlessly. “And it was right there I somehow made my first blunder. And having lost the trail once I’m afraid I’ve blundered often. In fact, as I see it now, I probably made a serious error even earlier when I let one of the party slip away without even getting out orders to have his trail picked up. A man by the name of Milton Dorn left directly after dinner last night—though I’m sure his first intention had not been to leave before morning. Doubtless there’s nothing more in it than that he foresaw bothersome complications; but he’s someone to look up.”
“Just to get back to what happened after the old man came clean about this guy Crawford,” Stebbins growled, with a distrust of your famed detective that was slow to be appeased. “What about it?”
Belknap’s invulnerable self-complacency affected Stebbins and Berry in totally dissimilar fashion. It stirred in the Sergeant a confused, stubborn rage, such as the English peasant feels for the arrogant huntsman heedlessly taking his fences, even though the hunter does no actual damage. While Berry, understanding Belknap’s natural pride, and realizing all that nourished it, only wished that a man of so great a professional stature should know the meaning of humility. “Perhaps the day will come,” Berry thought in passing, “when he will come a cropper in a case of importance, and, bowing his head, will bow his heart.”
“I was coming to that,” Belknap was saying. “Forgive my lack of speed and clarity in presenting the facts. My own thinking leads me astray. Each item, as I check it for your benefit, gives me pause to reconsider. To go back: Whittaker read his Diary. Suddenly, at a bad moment in the gruesome tale, Crawford gave himself away, if that were needed, by a call for water and help from his wife. Apparently she was so bewildered by the catastrophe that was falling upon the family she let another catastrophe present itself head over heels. For she delayed going to her husband long enough to allow his mistress—that little red-haired minx you’ve just seen upstairs—fall about his neck and prove how they stood. Also if proving was necessary. But it brought Mrs. Crawford to her senses, and she was knocking Miss Video into a cocked hat when Colonel Blake seemed to consider knocking the Judge into one. Then the lights went out. They would! Well, instead of going to the Judge’s rescue, which I guess is what I should have done, I spent my time reinstating the lights. They showed, when they came on, rather a mess. Whittaker was pretty well floored by what must have been a blow with intent to kill. Mrs. Crawford and Miss Video were looking murder at each other. Crawford appeared about to die of heart failure.”
“Who stood where?”
“The ‘foreign lady,’ as you call her, Sergeant, was nearest to the Judge. Blake seemed not to have reached him. Though he may have been on the spot and retreated. The rest were as they had been, as far as I can recall.”
“Gosh-all-hemlock! Pretty good pickin’s, eh?” Stebbins, flushed with excitement, was forgetting the chip on his shoulder. “What next, Mr. Belknap?”
“Little enough for awhile. Too little. It was ominous. There was nothing much I could do, really. Every one went to bed, or pretended to. I think they would have gone home, to a man, last night, but were downright ashamed to suggest it. Or perhaps they felt, as I did, that with morning a bad dream might vanish. Perhaps it’s the best excuse I have to offer for not proving much good in the crises. I assisted Whittaker upstairs, and suggested he apologize to Crawford and clear the air. I said he was getting the house into all sorts of a pickle—to say nothing of the real danger to himself. But he was in a mean mood. He had been ill lately and not himself. I’ll tell you about that later, too. Anyway, he stuck to his guns. He wasn’t badly hurt, though might have been. A slight head wound that someone will have to account for along with everything else.”
“Did he have any ideas?”
“None. We discussed the loss of the Diary. But that didn’t seem to worry him much, either. I imagine the threat of printing it was merely a ruse to drive his point more terribly home to Crawford. Poor Crawford.”